T (Part 3)
(Click HERE to read part 1 of "T")
(Click HERE to read part 2 of "T")
Finally, all my years of TV crime drama viewing and Walter Mitty daydreaming were going to converge in one explosive confrontation with a drunken Hobbit-sized man who could scarcely walk or talk. I wasn't as prepared as I would have liked to have been, considering this short five block walk was the most physical activity I had undertaken in many weeks, but it was too late to lament that now. I had to focus.
All I could produce was the beginning of my plan. When I had an area to run to which would provide me with at least some cover, I would raise my foot, and kick him in the side of his injured knee as hard as I could. This in itself was going to be hard to do. Trying to break somebody's leg wasn't something I did every day. But there were no other choices. The kick had to be hard, swift, and decisive. It must land with precision accuracy, as well, no easy feat when your target is walking erratically.
The problem I had was that no matter where on the street I chose to kick him, there was still a chance he was going to be able to recover in time to shoot me. Once we crossed the upcoming intersection, there were few places to run and hide; the street was practically all storefront. It would be a shooting gallery for T if he recovered from my kick.
There was an intersection nearby. Suddenly, instead of having a few more blocks in which to plan my escape, I might only have a few more feet. I began to shake and feel physically ill as we approached the next intersection. I was sweating hard; I couldn't swallow and could barely breathe. "Good God," I thought to myself as the intersection loomed some 30 feet ahead. "This is it." Fleeting thoughts of my parents, friends and cats were in my head when something quite remarkable happened.
T had stopped walking. Three businesses down from the intersection, there was a laundromat. A tall man had stepped out with a basket full of freshly laundered clothes; I could still smell the fabric softener on them. I turned to look at T, and even slowed down a bit to wait for him before I realized that would obviously be a very stupid thing to do. So, I just kept walking, slowly, looking back at T as he stepped up close to the man and belligerently asked "Is tonight laundry night?"
The guy didn't know what the hell was going on. I kept walking slowly towards the intersection. If I could just get to the corner, I would have a 30 foot head start on T, and he wouldn't be able to take a shot at me until he got to the intersection. I thought there was a chance I could get around to the alley before T could disengage the laundry man and get around that corner. If I made it to the alley, I could double back and dart through yards. Even a healthy T wouldn't have a chance to get a clean shot at me then, much less catch me. I just had to get to that corner. 10 feet away now. Five feet...
I turned to look back at T and the laundry man. T was in the guy's face, pointing at his laundry basket; I couldn't tell what he was saying. The laundry man was genuinely confused; as I looked back, I saw him turn from T to me. The look on his face was one I'll never forget; it must have been the same look I had back when T and I first met, no more than a half-hour ago. It was a look of confusion, but I also saw a glimmer of recognition, as if the laundry man realized that although I had been with T, I wasn't really "with" T of my own volition. I felt bad for him; who knew what trouble he was about to inherit?
I decided that wasn't my problem. That moment of eye contact and recognition lasted perhaps a second, at most. I was at the corner; I took one last look at T and I was gone. I ran to the alley, doubled back for about a half block, then cut through back yards to the next street, and then the next. In the span of a minute, I was probably three blocks away. I don't even know if he gave chase; it didn't matter. I took every back alley and circuitous route I could think of to get back to my apartment. I never stopped running. I hid in the bushes and scanned the street to make sure T wasn't around before I had the guts to go back inside, where I sat quietly in the dark and peered out of my windows for almost an hour.
I never saw T again. I checked the newspapers the next day, to see if there had been any killings of laundromat customers, but there didn't seem to be anything that pointed to T. I finally called the police the next day to report both T's hit-and-run and his abduction of me, but the police weren't interested! They said they had already solved the traffic accident, and if I wanted to file a report on the abduction, I was welcome.
I decided against it. I don't know why, really. Maybe the police already had T in connection with the traffic accident, I told myself. Either way, T seemed to have a lot of problems, and I figured he'd end up in prison soon enough. Besides, I didn't exactly want to have to ID T in a lineup, and then have him get out of prison again and find me walking down the street. Covering my tracks became my only priority.
Sometimes, I still think about T, and what would have happened had we crossed that street. Would I have been able to do what I needed to do to get away? Thankfully, I'll never know. More than anything, I think about the way the guy from the laundromat looked at me when he realized I wasn't ditching a friend, but was getting away from a problem that was now his. I would love to know how their relationship worked out, but it doesn't really matter in the long run. No matter what, for a half-hour, T and I had something special and unique that one of us would remember the rest of their lives.
1:54:02 PM 
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